Light a Candle for the Beast by Echo Shea

If you’ve ever been caught in a riptide, pulled down into the water, then you know me. Or, more accurately, what I’m like when I’m angry. Delia was beautiful, smart, and kind. He wasn’t. He said he loved her, but he didn’t know what love was. He was manipulative and cruel — more than a thief. A beast. All she wanted was a rose… These are the words on my sister’s grave. Her sadness, her obsession, forever a reminder I didn’t–couldn’t save her. I’m not vindictive or cruel. I’m simply as the river–my memory is winding and my reach is long. I watched him steal her beauty, her essence. Watched him become a beast. He thought he’d get away with it, thought he’d go free. I lay a rose upon my sister’s grave. Light a candle for the beast.

I wish I could say I have this incredible schedule—that I write an hour or two a day, or every morning and night like I really, really wish I did. Of the skills I have, time management is not one of them. I bring notebooks with me wherever I go and sometimes a small laptop along with a book. These are my safety nets for boredom and also a way to remind me that maybe I should write.

Writing Light a Candle for the Beast was sandwiched in between my free read Manor of Sweet Souls: Gladys Celebrates and my short in Spooktacular Seductions, “If This Be Madness.”But I wanted it so bad. I had struggled with this story for months, making it longer, bigger, faster, until finally I sat down at my computer for the umpteenth time and pulled at nothing, sitting in the dark, a rerun running on TV, and nervous energy running through me, wondering if this might finally be the one that got it right. And it was. It wasn’t the story I had in mind and it wasn’t what I thought it should be—it was what it needed to be.

Unfortunately, that is most often my scheduled time. No one’s bothering me, can’t wash dishes, can’t wash clothes or vacuum, so the guilt of the day’s worn off, and I’m so tired and I need to sleep, and suddenly I realize I need to write. I spend a hesitant moment to see if sleep will catch me, and then I go to my computer, pulse racing, knowing I need sleep and I’ll be completely useless tomorrow, and I tell that part of me to shut up, and I sit down and write.

These moments aren’t limited to night, though. I can have them anytime. It helps if you’re in a writing group or do chats, because then someone is there writing with you, and you feel a little pressured to do something good for your writing to share with them. Makes you feel like writing’s a priority.

When do I schedule time to write? Whenever I can. I can’t quantify it in hours or word count—both could go either way. Goals are good, though sometimes I break to read and let a story grow inside me, writing nothing at all—or at least what feels like nothing at all.

And sometimes I can lose my day to it—my attention span is the size of a gnat’s, my main answer to anything is “Hmmm?”, and I type like I mean it. Apparently, I type like I’m talking. People know my characters are angry by my tapping—who knew?

Mostly the thought that drives me forward, that gives me my paltry schedule is this: There will always be something else.

There will always be more clothes, dishes, muddy shoes, reruns… But if I don’t write, I won’t know the joys of living with my characters, of writing something beautiful, of one day having my book in my hands—if I don’t do it, then I’m not being who I want to be. I’m not doing what I love.

I write any moment I get the chance, because there will always be something else. But very little compares to this.

Bio:

Echo Shea is an Urban Fantasy writer. Known for fast-paced and sometimes chilling prose, she hunkers down at her desk with characters that not only enchant, but excite her. There’s something so freeing about writing beyond what seems possible. Who says there’s not something more hiding in these Maryland woods?